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Doghouse's 40k Stuff - The converting of Primaris begins...

Doghouse

Posted 20 March 2017 - 11:14 PM

Doghouse

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Although we currently don't know the rules for the game I'm going to get started on a warband so that when it hits the stores I'll be ready to roll. While I do regret that it's not actually Necromunda being a long time fan and player of the game the more I think about this game the more I like the idea of 40k armies being the focus rather than specific gangs. For starters if you have even a partially assembled and painted 40k army chances are you are good to go and secondly the range of possible warbands is HUGE compared to having to wait for a drip release of new plastic gangers.

The other good thing about this system is that there are so many models I'd love to have a sound reason to buy and paint but I really can't justify buying a box of models that will never see the table because the army doesn't interest me. So with this in mind, I'm taking a gamble and going with Chaos Marines.

The possibilities for narrative are amazing (even though I am keeping my expectations low) and one thing I did learn from my many hours of playing the likes of Necromunda and Gorkamorka is that it can be amazing fun as you watch your fledgling group of warriors step out into the harsh world of 40k and do their best to survive and thrive battling it out with your friends.

So with this in mind I am going with the narrative of a small group of Chaos Marines who captured a small Imperial transport and are surviving through raids on remote outposts or even turning up on far flung worlds declaring themselves to be servants of the Emperor and demanding tithes from locals who most likely have only ever seen a space marine in ancients texts or paintings. I find the idea of a large number of the Imperium never having set eyes on an Astartes fascinating and something I think that renegades might try to use to their advantage.

Basically these guys are nobodies in the greater scheme of things, they are not the Khans or Abaddons of the universe, they are forced to raid small outposts and scavenge wargear from the dead. They are not a tightly knit band of brothers, they are bought together out of a mutual need for survival and do not trust each other in the slightest.

The idea I am playing with is that after a raid on a remote agriworld they have entered the warp but due to a miscalculation they emerge in real space near Armageddon right in the middle of a battle between massive Imperial Battleships and Ork Kroozers as their tiny ship is heavily damaged in the cross fire forcing them to crash on Armageddon itself. From here their goal is simply to survive and escape no matter the cost.

WIP Champion

I'm assuming Bolter, Chainsword and Bolt Pistol are fairly safe bets for a load out even though I've no idea how this will work beyond a list of options. This guy is a former Sergeant of the Death Guard that never turned with the rest of the Legion to Nurgle. A survivor of the Istvaan Massacre and with both sides of the conflict treating him and his men as the enemy, he and his surviving brothers were driven out to the Eye of Terror during the Scouring and now he has emerged ten thousand years later into a universe of utter madness. He's bitter to see the Empire he proudly fought to create during the Great Crusade turn against him despite his loyalty and curses the betrayal of his Primarch. Now he plunders worlds killing traitor and loyalist alike, the splendour of the Great Crusade little more than a distant memory.

Still early days at the moment as I am slowly building up the bone to an off white. I've given him a Blood Angels arm and Ultramarines leg to show how he has had to scavenge parts from dead enemies and I like how the arm is a nod to the Dusk Raiders which may or may not be intentional on his part. The other aspect of this I like is that each panel and plate is probably of huge significance to the Chapter which it came from, the plates probably were present at historic victories or belonged to great heroes but to him it's just armour to replace the damaged plates of his own suit. It's something that always struck me with the original Space Wolves 13th company with the models having various parts from traitor legions that they had looted on their war in the Eye.

I'm using the standard 40k embossed bases, partially to save time and partially because I think it fits well to the setting of the game. The lighting is not great on these but it will do for now till I can get some better ones up.

Doghouse

Posted 23 March 2017 - 06:03 PM

Doghouse

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Kordhal: Thanks mate

brettfp: Cheers I really am a fan of the idea of these guys really being down on their luck and having to scavenge resources where ever they can find them. It also creates a difference in mentality between the Legions and the Astartes in regards to wargear with the loyalists going into battle in ancient relics where as the traitors don't care about that kind of thing and are just looting working parts to keep their gear going.

Quick update

Slowly building up to a white (although the pictures have washed out most of the highlights and shading). In person it's coming along nicely, basically I'm now just applying milky washes of Ceramite White building it up greater where the light would hit. I need to highlight the face more but it's getting there now. Seriously fighting the urge to go full Heresy era on these guys and repaint the stolen parts of armour but that is not what I want to achieve from this project.

WIP Traitor Ultramarine

While still extremely rough the next guy is more of a contemporary Astartes and is a bit of a test model at the moment so I am trying various bits and pieces on it to see what works and what doesn't. The idea behind this guy is that he is an an Ultramarine that has turned to chaos after becoming separated or perhaps captured and corrupted by the ruinous powers.

I want this to be a stark contrast to the Legionnaire seen above. This guy has existed in the more recent years of the narrative, I'm using the Death Watch master head to give him a more mature feel despite the fact the Legionnaire is technically a lot older.

The rough idea I am playing with is that this guy turned around the 37th/38th millennium so has aged a great deal during that time. He will be a full blown devote of chaos and the rough sketching on the model will eventually be devotion markings. It's kind of a play on the modern god worshiping mentality, so you have these dedicated Legionnaires raised on the Imperial Truth with some degree free will contrasting against the modern indoctrinated Astartes who when removed of the opportunity to follow one technical God they turn to another. It's an aspect I find interesting and wish to explore a bit more.

The idea is that this guy is the warband's guide to the universe of 40k for the Legionnaires in the group. Obviously he has his own motives but right now it serves his purposes to explain just how the Imperium works. This guy is partially why I went with an Ultramarines leg for the Death Guard guy, although they are very different characters I felt it tied the two together a little visually.

Doghouse

Posted 25 March 2017 - 12:30 AM

I must admit I am really enjoying making these, shame I'm not a huge fan of the current dex or I would expand these guys but who knows maybe 8th will see them return to form.

Quick Update

Nearly finished the Champion/Sergeant and just have to blend in the new markings I've added, clean up a few spots and then drill out the bolter and he's pretty much done. I've not really done much to the Ultramarine other than add the arm which I've just mapped out the colours on and lighten some of the blue areas, I've also sunk the head a little further down behind the gorget.

The next two I've undercoated but the guy on the right will be a Heresy era Night Lord while the guy on the left will be a Word Bearer who's been around in the 40k universe for some time now and is suitably corrupted into the 40k style. Ideally I want a balance between newly emergent Heresy Legionnaires and 40k Chaos Marines. Personally I think they would have very different and conflicting ideologies so a tipping of power to either side of the long war could be disastrous from their perspective.

Ideally what I want is the scales tipped slightly in favour of the Legionnaires so may add a couple more of the Death Guard and try and take them up to six maybe adding a fully corrupted Slaanesh marine and another Chaos marine to take the squad to ten. As I have no idea what the war gear options will be I want to make as many as possible with a few variants thrown in to cover all bases. I'm pretty sure I'll be ok with the Word Bearer and his Heavy Bolter.

Vairocanum

Posted 25 March 2017 - 01:05 AM

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The sergeant looks great! Really like the idea of mixing heresy legionnaires with their 40k counterparts. The scavenged armor in different colors is a great touch, maybe having a marine made with completely different armor marks could be cool (like an amalgamation of cataphractii, tartaros, corvus, heresy, maximus or iron armor). Definitely looking forward to seeing some paint on the chaos marines!

Doghouse

Posted 26 March 2017 - 01:23 AM

Doghouse

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Thanks mate

I must admit I did try adding in parts of other marks of armour but it was just too time consuming in the end for the torso and legs. Maybe if I try a second squad I will give it a go and there is nothing to say I won't work in some of the helmets or shoulder pads.

Quick Update

Still just WIP stuff for now but it's getting there. Been a bit busy of late but once I get the chance to relax I'll put together some background material to flesh them out a bit.

Got some work done on the Night Lord and Word Bearer but still very much early days as you can probably tell. I want the Night Lord to be a convicted serial killer, Hannibal Lector style, that was one of the later convicts recruited into the Legion. This guy is extremely obsessive over the most minute of details, doing his utmost to retain his armour in pristine condition where as the other Legionnaires who feel little loyalty to their former Legions are more than happy to slap on a loyalist armour part and move on. Every move and thought this guy has is calculated to the extreme.

The Word Bearer on the other hand is a loud, arrogant zealot. I had thought to go the Chaplain route with this guy but it seemed too obvious, this guy preaches to the reverberating roar of his heavy bolter with devotion seals blowing in the breeze. This guy is any but subtle.

With these guys well under way now I'm turning my attention to other teams I may wish to make. While some I am toying around with at the moment can't be posted here due to their xenos nature I do see a lot of potential for Imperial teams.

These guys below are one such example, I'll post pictures of the Skitari unit once we get confirmation of their make up. These will be a proxy Guard squad, it was tempting to go last chancers or veteran unit but ultimately I decided I wanted to do something less glorious and more mundane.

The idea behind these guys is that they will be a Spire Explorator team, basically it's their job to go into the under hive and conduct repairs and surveys and maybe recover any lost tech they should stumble across. They are pretty much the low level working class nobody guys of the Imperium performing a thankless and dangerous task deep in the bowels of the Hives who now have to contend with doing their jobs in the middle of a war.

I have some interesting ideas for these guys but the core of the squad is the Genestealer hybrid bodies with Skitari helms. This is a really simple conversion but more importantly because the Mining Armour worn by Genestealer cultists is actually a proper Imperial design then it is extremely lore friendly too.

I'm still building these guys on the side but will remove all the cultist icons and maybe add a few little details to mix things up a bit.

Doghouse

Posted 27 March 2017 - 07:22 PM

Doghouse

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Cheers guys

Charlo: Yeah those are really handy especially as they are official Imperial designs once you remove the cult icons. I really like the Anvilus pack because for my opponent it immediately says, ok I am up against chaos marines here but from a lore point of view I can see these guys using them to silently cross open space to attack space stations from the outside.

Quick Update

Ok so a very rough and quick update on the fly. Had a little time today to get some more mapping done, I'm playing around with the idea of tying these guys together visually by including a white piece of armour on each. The general theme being that one of the Death Guard has met an untimely end and they have basically divided his gear and armour up between them. So for the most part each will have a different leg or arm or whatever from his armour that will amount to one full suit. To further bring them together each of the marines will have a seven in some form on their left knee.

Did a little bit of work on the Ultramarine but not much, I've added some Dark Angel coloured armour plates and added the white thigh. The second guy is an Iron Warrior that was a survivor of the Cage, hence the Imperial Fist plates on his armour. Both thes guys are still very much early days but they are coming along. Once I am happy with the feel of the models I'll go back over each of them and getting them finished properly.

KrautScientist

Posted 27 March 2017 - 10:46 PM

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The true scale renegades are looking absolutely fantastic, and quite on par with your usual high standard of true scale conversion. I will say that I am maybe not 100% on board with the mix and match coloration of their armour, but I get what you are trying to do there, and for what it's worth, the effect is expertly executed!

Doghouse

Posted 27 March 2017 - 11:18 PM

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Thanks mate

Yeah the armour bit is tricky, plus there is the matter of getting a balance between the different members of the team. It's difficult because in truth they are scavengers and given their dire circumstances it doesn't really make sense to me to have them all wandering around in parts they have repainted that they have looted from their enemies. Visually it can be hard to swallow right now but in truth it's more credible to the concept.

The general plan is go with a larger number of the Death Guard and then tie it in with the others. There have been a couple of times where I have looked at these guys and thought nah that's not working, the trick is going to be to push forward through that and blend it all together. I think adding more predominantly white armoured guys to the squad should pull it through with any luck, the only other none Death Guard guy I have planned is a World Eater so the rest should work I hope.

I think once I have the entire squad built and base coated it may be a bit easy to blend them all together as a coherent force.

Dragonlover

Posted 27 March 2017 - 11:57 PM

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The mixed armour reminds me of a plog on Warseer back in the day called 'The Pantokrators Fallen Men'. The concept there was 36 renegades from different loyalist chapters, and although as a Slaaneshi force some discord was needed, there was some conversation about coherency.

Also the miners look awesome, and I may well use that idea for some NPC's in the Black Crusade game I'm running soon.

Isengrin

Posted 28 March 2017 - 11:15 AM

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Doghouse doing Chaos Marines? Now that's a treat. The Ultramarine's defiled chapter symbol on his shoulder pad reminds me of those renegades, who painted red crosses over theirs (that was in the 3.5 codex I think). Your champion looks tremendous already, and I will follow with great interest how the others will turn out.

Neil101

Posted 29 March 2017 - 08:23 PM

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Aye up , I have long been a fan of your work Doghouse , from the truscale advanced space crusade project up to more recent works. But this project has really captured my immagination. I too am delighted to see Armageddon , and 40k skirmish games back in vogue at gw. Your dirty dozen marines are great . I love the mk 3 chunkyness of them, was it tricky upscaling them ?

Doghouse

Posted 29 March 2017 - 11:01 PM

Krautscientist: Having seen your excellent project log mate I'll do my very best to not disappoint.

Dragonlover: That sounds like a very cool army. The main source of inspiration for this came from my own views on what traitor's would be like in shattered warbands and the 13th Space Wolves company that came out way back in the day with all the miss matched armour parts they took from traitors. It struck a cord with how I saw them.

Vairocanum: Thanks mate, it seemed like the kind of thing they would do under the circumstances. When you are low on ammo and parts and one of your guys falls in battle I expect the sergeant would go alpha male on them and dish out the parts of the fallen Astartes to the others to ensure their loyalty.

Isengrin: Thanks mate, I think that would be the original Red Corsairs who were just regular marines but had their chapter icons crossed out the way you mention. I remember those well.

Neil101: Well I certainly appreciate the compliment mate, anyone that can keep tabs on all the stuff I have done over the years certainly deserves a run down on how I made these guys.

This is probably the simplest of the techniques I have come up with over the years, partially because the parts are there now in plastic and partially because although I could probably sculpt a lot of this stuff from scratch I really enjoy passing on ideas to other people to run with and try for themselves.

This first picture is how I started the torso, although I used the front of the Cataphracti armour in this shot I use the Tartarus on the guys above. Firstly I stuck on the rear of a regular marine torso and lined up the collar with the trim of the gorget neck protection on the Tartarus front. I did have to trim the back of the Tartartus a little to get it to match the torso rear because there are two little stubs on there. I used a Mk 4 torso rear for the cables but any marine one should do.I then removed the belt area on the back of the torso.

Next I removed the lower cables and then green stuffed over the gap at the bottom so it gives a nice flush edge. In truth if you are not that confident on green stuff you probably could achieve something similar with a bit of plasticard. And that was pretty much the torso, which is the hardest part done. After that i trimmed the rounded abdominal area on the Cataphracti legs so it was a bit flatter on top then stuck on the torso. I then just stuck MK 2 plastic arms and shoulder pads on because they are a little bulkier and the chaos marine back pack. Once you get the torso and legs done it just falls into place and is pretty straight forward from that point on.

Neil101

Posted 30 March 2017 - 07:50 AM

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Thanks for the tutorial , I think you have perfected this technique . I am surprised how well the cataprhactii legs and mk 3 ? arms work . It looks like a great and relatively painless approach to up scaling a group or even army of Astartes. Putting them on the slightly raised sculpted bases is another subtle touch to increaser the height too.. I am looking forward to seeing the rest of the Armageddon project develop too.

Posted 30 March 2017 - 08:39 AM

Doghouse

Posted 30 March 2017 - 09:35 PM

Doghouse

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Neil101: No worries mate. Yeah those are Mk 3 arms there, they give the arms a bit of bulk, the bit I like about this style is people easily mistake it for regular Mk3 armour until they realise the scale.

PeaceCraft: Thanks mate. I really do enjoy seeing narrative behind miniatures and in the example of these guys it really does help shape them and give me a direction to go with them.

With more leaks concerning unit composition it sounds like I may have access to cultists as lesser troop types which is great news, I think I can also take a spawn and raptor as specialists which might make for fun models. I don't think this game will be quite as in depth as Necromunda was but should still be interesting from a narrative gaming perspective.